Mertcan Bulak
@MBulak
1178 okur puanı
Ağustos 2020 tarihinde katıldı
Şu anda okuduğu kitap
Alexander Pope wrote:
Nature and Nature’s laws
lay hid in night;
God said, “Let Newton be!”
and all was light.
Reklam
Luther believed that the human will was enslaved, totally unable, apart from grace, to love or serve God. But Erasmus considered this a dangerous doctrine since it threatened to relieve a person of his moral responsibility. What Luther regarded basic to biblical religion, Erasmus dismissed as inhumane.
The differences in the Reformation and the Renaissance lie right there, in the view of humanity. The Reformers preached the original sin of humanity and looked upon the world as fallen and under God’s curse. The Renaissance had a positive estimate of human nature and the universe itself.
This denominational view of the church found only limited acceptance in England, where the Church of England retained a favored position, even after the Act of Toleration in 1689 recognized the rights of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers to worship freely. In the English colonies of America, however, the denominational theory gained increasing acceptance. It seemed to be God’s answer for the multiplying faiths in the New World.
These Dissenting Brethren of Westminster articulated the denominational theory of the church in several fundamental truths:
First, since a person is unable to always see all of the truth clearly, differences of opinion about the outward form of the church are inevitable.
Second, even though these differences do not involve fundamentals of the faith, they are not matters of indifference. Every Christian is obligated to practice what he believes the Bible teaches.
Third, since no church has a final and full grasp of divine truth, the true church of Christ can never be fully represented by any single ecclesiastical structure.
Finally, the mere fact of separation does not of itself constitute schism. It is possible to be divided at many points and still be united in Christ.
Denominationalism, as originally designed, is the opposite of sectarianism. A sect claims the authority of Christ for itself alone. It believes that it is the only true body of Christ; all truth belongs to it and to no other religion. So by definition a sect is exclusive.
The word denomination by contrast was an inclusive term. It implied that the Christian group called or “denominated” by a particular name was but one member of a larger group—the church—to which all denominations belong.
The denominational theory of the church, then, insists that the true church cannot be identified with any single ecclesiastical structure. No denomination claims to represent the whole church of Christ. Each simply constitutes a different form—in worship and organization—of the larger life of the church.
Reklam